Ontario rents declining everywhere except in this one city

A new national rent report shows that Ontario continues to lead Canada's rental market correction, with nearly every major city analyzed in the province seeing year-over-year rent declines, with the notable exception of one city, where tight student-driven demand is still pushing prices higher.

According to digital marketplace Zumper's Canadian National Rent Report, all nine of the Ontario cities included in the report (minus Kingston) recorded declining annual one-bedroom rent over the past year.

The report analyzes rental data from thousands of active listings, which are then aggregated on a monthly basis to calculate median asking rents for the top 23 most populous metro areas across the country.

Looking at Canada as a whole, national asking rents increased in April for one-bedroom and two-bedroom units for the first time in seven months. Nationally, one-bedroom rents rose 0.2 per cent month-over-month in April to $1,782, while two-bedroom rents increased by 0.3 per cent to $2,210.

Year-over-year, national one-bedroom rents have declined by 2.9 per cent, while two-bedroom rents have declined by 1.7 per cent.

Regionally, the report notes that Ontario continues to absorb the heaviest losses.

"This province remains the epicenter of Canada's rental correction. TD Economics forecasts that Ontario housing starts will fall again in 2026, with Barrie, Oshawa, and other GTA-adjacent markets experiencing some of the largest percentage declines in starts since 2023," the report reads.

"This signals that near-term new supply additions will slow, potentially supporting a floor for rents in those markets."

Oshawa leads in the province with the sharpest drop in annual one-bedroom rent decline (-11.6 per cent), while Kingston recorded a 9.2 per cent growth in annual one-bedroom rent. That increase, the report notes, can be attributed to a "chronic shortage of student housing tied to demand from Queen's University and St. Lawrence College."

Two-bedroom rents in Kingston also climbed to $2,450 last month, representing a staggering increase of 30.3 per cent year-over-year.

One-bedroom rent prices across Canadian cities in April. Source: Zumper.

Here in Toronto, one-bedroom rents fell 8.3 per cent annually to $2,100, while two-bedroom rents declined by 5.6 per cent to $2,700.

Other Ontario cities included in the report saw modest declines in their one-bedroom rents year-over-year, including London (-1.2 per cent), Ottawa (-2.5 per cent), Barrie (-3.3 per cent), Kitchener (-3.4 per cent), and Windsor (-4.3 per cent), while other cities, including St. Catharines (-6.9 per cent) and Hamilton (-9.4 per cent) recorded more significant declines.